


Magic In the Stars

by NephilimEQ



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter fandom - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AO3 FB Challenge, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Stargate Atlantis Fusion, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Clued in Rodney, Clueless John, Fanart, Idiots in Love, M/M, Stargate Atlantis - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-10 21:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15300084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NephilimEQ/pseuds/NephilimEQ
Summary: John Sheppard and Rodney McKay are seventh years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As a pair of unlikely best friends, John soon figures out that his friend is hiding something from him. But what could it be?





	1. Chapter 1

 

****

 

**Chapter 1**

Seventh year Ravenclaw John Sheppard was agitated as he watched McDowell, the Chaser of the Hufflepuff team, manage to snatch the quaffle out from under Bednis’ nose on his own blue and black team, which was, unfortunately, living up to its’ colors. _He_ should be up there, dammit. Stupid shattered wrist. Even with Madam Pomfrey’s Skele-Gro, he was sidelined for the next week. Despite the pain of watching his Quidditch team getting creamed, he stayed.

McDowell scored.

John winced.

Ugh. This was going to be a brutal loss.

Ten minutes later, Pattinson had ended the game, with Hufflepuff beating them soundly, three hundred and fifty to a scant one hundred. John looked at his team captain, Samantha Carter, with a solid glare. _He_ could have done better, and he was _injured_.

As he walked out of the stands, he pulled away from the massive outflow of students in their weekend clothes and walked down to have a stern word with his captain, but she brushed him off with a roll of her eyes and a hand in his face, saying, “I don’t wanna hear it, Sheppard. Yes, it was a bad game, and, no, I’m not letting you back on the team. One week, remember?”

“But I’m fine!” John adamantly protested, jogging to keep up with her, but she ignored him.

“No, you’re not. Deal with it.”

And she left, leaving him standing on the Hogwarts grounds as it started to rain, slowly soaking through his black, long sleeved shirt, turning his normally perfect hair into a wet mop on the top of his head. He ignored the other students walking past him, either looking excited or forlorn at the outcome of the match, turning the dirt pathway into a muddy, treacherous slide back towards the castle, several of them laughing and holding onto each other as they tried to avoid falling face first into it.

John scowled, his mood turning even darker as the bottom of his pants got soaked and his shoes caked with mud.

He stormed off back towards the castle, trying to calm himself back down, but not with much success. As he rushed into the Great Hall, he calmed down slightly at seeing Rodney McKay sitting at their usual spot. McKay, despite all of his smarts, was in Gryffindor, but was one of the more cowardly Gryffindors that Sheppard had ever met.

He observed him from a distance, absently flicking his wand, removing the dirt from his shoes and pants, noting that his friend was wearing one of John’s sweaters, his charcoal gray one, and he seemed to be drowning in it as it was a couple of sizes too big for his scrawny frame. He’d obviously stolen it from the shared pile of forgotten clothes that they regularly left in the Room of Requirement on the nights that they sparred together. John helped Rodney in Defense, the only subject the otherwise perfect student struggled with.

The Gryffindor’s hair flopped over his eyes, and he kept on attempting to blow it out of his face, with no success. His legs were on the bench, one tucked up under him, the other bent with his knee resting against the edge of the table, his brow furrowed and eyes focused all too seriously on the parchment and books in front of him.

“Hey,” John said as he sat down, tucking his wand away and tapping a finger on the table. “Did you see the game?”

Rodney gave him a look over his papers.

“Oh, ha ha, very funny. You know I don’t go to the games.” He moved a book and pulled out a half-filled notebook, the pages covered in complex, glowing equations. “I am currently working on disproving Didacus Tubbs’ theory of arithmantic magical non-parallel dimensions.”

“Whatever,” John drawled, reaching for an apple. He took a bite and nearly choked and spat it out. “What the hell was _that_?”

“A transfigured rotten banana,” Rodney absently replied, not looking up from his notes.

He spat out the bite and glared at his friend.

“Do you have to leave your homework lying around?”

Rodney gave him yet _another_ look.

“Oh, yes, I forgot: you wouldn’t know what a book looks like, do you?” He unexpectedly waved his wand at John’s still-soaked hair, which was now perfectly dry, and added, “Look, there’s a certain level of irony here that even _you_ can appreciate, Sheppard. You’re in Ravenclaw and are only passing several of your classes because _I’ve_ been helping you.” He stared intently at one of the pages in front of him and then absently added, “I know you’re annoyed that you can’t play right now, but don’t take it out on me or the work, alright?”

He waved his wand in a convoluted pattern, and a bright, jagged slice of light appeared in the air, along with a sudden snap of electricity, and John nearly fell off the bench, and several students nearby startled as well, but the professors up on the dais barely even looked up from their meals. They were _used_ to that sort of thing from their star student, Rodney McKay.

“Rodney…what the hell?”

His best friend hummed under his breath and muttered, “Huh, that’s what I thought. He didn’t apply the proper co-efficient to the summoning aspect of the spell and didn’t compensate for the lack of power being drawn…hmm,” he hummed again. “Maybe if I…well, that’s fairly simple and straight forward. This should be an easy fix.”

He lifted his wand once more and John flinched before anything happened, certain that there was going to be another explosive shot of sound…

But nothing happened. At least, nothing involving sound.

Instead, a bright line of light appeared between the two of them over the table, and as Rodney tapped it with his wand, John could hear voices coming from the light. He leaned in a bit closer…and then realized he was hearing his _own_ voice, along with Rodney’s.

“What the hell…?”

“You say that a lot,” his friend observed, tracing the trailing end of light with his acacia wand, while John’s cedar wand was tightly gripped in his right hand in apprehension. “I’ve tapped into listening to a parallel world.”

“Seriously?!”

Rodney rolled his eyes.

“No, I am being _incredibly_ sarcastic.”

John snorted, and said, “Alright, point made.” He settled back onto the bench and took a look at it a second time and then begrudgingly admitted, “Okay, even _I’ve_ got to admit, that’s really cool…”

His friend snorted.

“Well, duh.”

John rolled his eyes but continued to look at the line of light in the air between them, trying not to let on just how awesome he thought it was. After a moment, however, the light disappeared, so John settled back on the bench from where he’d been leaning forward, and pulled a tray of food towards him, taking a bite out of a pumpkin muffin.

Rodney continued to mess with the spell for a while longer until the light finally faded, and then flickered out like a sputtering candle. John would never admit it to Rodney, but he actually _did_ understand the magic behind the spell. However, he _also_ knew that Rodney enjoyed being the smart one. Which he was, of course, but he was also surprisingly naïve when it came to certain things…such as the fact that there was a _reason_ why John was in Ravenclaw, despite his fearless and reckless Gryffindor-like qualities that he was used to being mocked for in the Ravenclaw common room.

He finished chewing his muffin, swallowed, and then asked, “So, since you’ve just disproved Dillweed Turban’s theory…”

“Didacus Tubbs,” Rodney corrected him, but John ignored him and plowed on, “Since you’ve disproved his theory, does that mean anything, you know, important?”

Rodney shrugged and waved his wand, causing his papers to slide themselves back into his bag in their proper places, and replied, “Oh, you know, just the usual; Order of Merlin second class, a nice little article on page six in the Daily Prophet, a half-assed interview from that horrid Skeeter woman, and about two hundred thousand galleons for research purposes…you know. The usual.”

John was grateful that he’d finished his food, because he knew that he definitely would have choked on it at hearing that number.

“Two hundred _thousand?_ Galleons?”

Rodney didn’t even bat an eye as he stood up, taking one last sip of his water (he _loathed_ pumpkin juice) and grabbing a muffin. He then looked down at John with a small smirk and said, “It’s cute that you think that’s a substantial amount for research into theoretical astro-arithmancy. That _might_ pay for an advanced Juno telescope, an Archimedes sphere, and some time at Daedalus’ workshop. Really, not all that much,” he finished with a frustrated sigh, which annoyed John to no end.

“You’re going to get an Order of Merlin second class, a crap ton of money, along with exclusive access to the most highly advanced magical devices in the history of magic, and you’re _complaining_ about it?”

Rodney snorted and snapped back, “I’m not _complaining_ about it, I’m merely making an accurate observation of the situation…”

John rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, sure you are,” he drawled as he stood back up and then jumped the table effortlessly, with one hand on top of it, to join his friend on the other side, not noticing the approving female glances sent in his direction from all the other tables in the Great Hall. “Now,” he pestered as he kept pace next to Rodney’s quick, long strides, “If you can do something like _that_ in your spare time, then what can you do to get me back on the Quidditch team before the end of the week?”

Rodney rolled his eyes, but a small smile snuck onto the corner of his mouth at John’s nagging, and he slowed his pace so that his friend wasn’t having to jog just to keep up with him.

“Well…I might know _some_ thing that could help…”

He left the sentence dangling in front of him like a pasty on a stick and John jumped at it like a trained kneazle.

“Oh, don’t tease me, McKay,” he said as they headed for the main staircase that lead to the library. “If you can get me back on that field--”

“Don’t you mean _above_ it?”

“Rodney…”

Not wanting to frustrate him any further at hearing his friend’s tone, the Gryffindor conceded and said, “Fine, fine. Give me a few hours to put a few things together and then we can meet up on the Astronomy tower at around, say, is ten alright?”

“Ten? Isn’t that, you know…a little _late?_ Like, breaking curfew and losing house points kind of late?”

Rodney rolled his eyes again, and then said with that annoyingly cocky smile of his that was _entirely_ Gryffindor, “If _I_ found a way to sneak out after dark undetected by professors, Mr. Filch, and Mrs. Norris, then surely _you_ , a Ravenclaw student, can find a way out, too…”

John wanted to punch him and wipe the stupid smirk off his face, but he managed to control the violent impulse and instead replied through clenched teeth, “I’ll think of something,” and at that, Rodney grinned and replied, “Oh, I’m sure you will.”

He walked away towards the library.

John still wanted to hit him.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

A few hours later, John found himself doing something that was stupidly reckless. It was so reckless that he was certain that somehow the ghost of Godric Gryffindor would show up and try to stop him.

Here was his plan, as crazy as it was: Ravenclaw tower had two separate dormitories and, it just so happened, that the boys’ dormitory had several large windows around the tower…and there was an eave of the castle connecting just beneath one of the windows. _His_ window, to be precise. And, of all places, it was only about a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Astronomy tower, as the crow flew.

And that was his plan.

Stupid. Reckless. Stupid. Stupid. And, oh yeah…stupid. Yep, that about covered it.

Normally, the windows were spelled shut, but John had broken the wardings on those spells in his first year at Hogwarts, and so he simply waited until everyone was asleep before implementing his suicide mission.

The instant the other Eaton twin was asleep, he cast a silencing spell on his sneakers, the hinges of the window, and the area around his bed.

He could _not_ get caught.

He double checked to make sure that Tobias Eaton was _not_ faking it, and then cautiously used his bedpost to leverage himself up to the window ledge, which was, luckily, very deep. It had stopped raining, but the roof was still slick, so John knew he had to be extra careful while scaling the outside of the Hogwarts castle. He briefly wondered if anyone had ever done it before, but then shoved the thought away and turned his focus to his escape.

He nudged the window open with his knee after unsticking the simple hook lock…and then swallowed down the bile in the back of his throat as he looked at the drop just beyond where he was about to put his feet. It was a drop of at _least_ three hundred feet, but in the dark, it felt like a thousand.

His stomach dropped. John swallowed.

God.

Why was this the smart plan?

He was about to back out of the window and then remembered: he _needed_ to be back on the Quidditch team before the next game. If he wasn’t back on the team, they would lose again, and he would be stuck dealing with the fact that in his last year at Hogwarts, Ravenclaw would lose the Inter-House Quidditch cup. _Again_. Nope. Not happening.

With a surge of confidence that John was fairly sure was _not_ his, he stepped out onto the ledge, which was a meager eight inches across. The stone was slippery.

Out of instinct, he reached for the window…but it blew closed with a sudden gust of wind.

No turning back.

Taking a deep breath, he crouched low and silently lit up his wand, which he had in a death grip in his right hand that he put out in front of him. One thing he hated about Hogwarts? No muggle technology. He _really_ wished he had a headlamp right about now. He took a few cautious steps, some of the tension leaving him when he realized that it wasn’t as bad as he thought.

 _I can do this_ , he pep-talked himself. _I can do this._

John inched out a bit further and tried to keep his eyes trained on the roof ahead of him. Only a hop, skip, and a jump, he reminded himself. A hop, skip, jump. Hop. He took a step. Skip. Took another step. Jump. He took a step and the toes of his shoes slid for a second, but it was enough to have his heartrate skyrocket.

Really not the best phrase to use on a slippery, wet roof, he realized in retrospect. Oh, well. Too late.

He continued to make his way, being as careful as possible. He could see the Astronomy tower. Only a little bit further and he’d be safe. Relatively.

John continued to talk to himself as he moved along the roof of one of the most prestigious wizarding schools and again wondered if anyone had ever stood where he was standing at that very moment. He could imagine that it was probably one hell of a view during the day, but on a night with no moon it was simply terrifying.

Finally, his feet met the ledge that dropped down to the open Astronomy tower balcony.

As he stepped down onto it, he felt his heart finally resume its’ normal rhythm. It was kind of wonderful to have his feet back on a more solid and stable surface. A surface with railings. Yes. Very nice.

Rodney wasn’t there, yet, so John sat down and waited, looking up at the stars.

Now _that_ was an amazing view that he would never get tired of. Astronomy was one of the few subjects that he never got bored with. He stared for a long time, and then was taken out of his daze when a familiar and annoyed voice said, “Okay, how’d you get here before me?”

John smiled.

“Oh, you know. The easy way.”

“You did what I did and told Headmaster Woolsey that you needed the Astronomy tower for the night to finish your homework because of a rare meteor shower, the Pegasus Pleiades, that only happens once every 400 years? And he gave you a pass for the night?”

John hesitated before answering, “Uh, not exactly.”

Rodney’s eyebrow shot up at his reply and then he looked at his friend and asked him in a tone that seemed to imply he didn’t want the actual answer, “Well, I didn’t see any sign of you on the stairs, which I would have since the Gryffindor common room is closer, which means you got here some other way…”

“Yours isn’t actually closer,” John muttered, dropping his eyes and avoiding eye contact as he added, “I mean, you can see the Ravenclaw dorm room from here if you look out at the right angle…”

At his answer, Rodney first looked perplexed…and then his eyes widened as he put the information together in his head. He spat out, “Don’t tell me you did what you think I did, because if you did, then there is no _way_ I am helping you get back on the Quidditch team before the weekend!”

“Then, no, I did _not_ do what you think I did.”

Rodney threw up his hands in disgust, and then glared at him and accused, “You went out on the roof, didn’t you?” John didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. “Do you have any _idea_ how _dangerous_ that is?! How even just one slip could _kill_ you?!”

“Yeah, yeah, put a sock in it, McKay,” Sheppard snapped at him. “I didn’t fall to my death, so let’s just get this magic stuff over with.”

“Hold on a minute,” Rodney said, confused, “How’d you even get out of the dorm? Those windows can’t be opened!”

John scoffed and drawled, “Oh, please, like the warding on those windows is actually effective. I broke through those in my first year.”

At this, his younger friend looked at him in shock. He sputtered for a moment, and then finally got out, “How, how the _hell_ did you break through Hogwarts warding?! I mean, I mean, those spells have been there for a few hundred, no, almost a thousand years! How’d you break them?”

John shrugged.

“Eh, wasn’t too hard. Just…you know…some fancy wand stuff…look,” he said, turning slightly away from him, bothered by Rodney’s close scrutiny, “I don’t know. I just…did. Now, can you please just fix my arm the rest of the way, so I can finish out the season?”

Rodney rolled his eyes and snapped, “Is Quidditch all you care about?”

John shrugged.

“No, but it’s kinda important right now, so can you fix it already?”

Rodney glared at him but said nothing more as he pulled out his wand and a few crumpled pages of notes from his bag. Muttering under his breath the entire time, he moved to John’s side and forced him to sit down on the cold stone and ran his wand along the length of John’s arm, from his shoulder all the way down to his wrist, pausing at each joint and saying something in a language John hadn’t heard before. It certainly wasn’t Latin, he knew that much.

Whatever he did, he felt a warm line of heat start in his shoulder and slide down through his arm into the tips of his fingers, lingering mostly in his forearm and wrist, and John could swear that he could actually _feel_ his bones knitting the rest of the way back together.

John carefully flexed his fingers. It didn’t hurt.

Up until that point he’d been having a constant low throbbing pain in his wrist and hand that Madam Pomfrey had told him would last at least another week because shattered bones were no easy matter, but it was completely gone all thanks to Rodney. He wondered for a brief moment what language his friend had been speaking, but brushed it off when he stretched his arm out the entire way and felt nothing of the lingering aches deep in his shoulder and elbow. Thank Merlin. He could play again!

“Dude, thanks,” he remembered to say. “I mean, now we’ve actually got a chance to take the cup this year!”

Rodney rolled his eyes.

“Is that _all_ you care about?”

John shrugged, not quite looking up at him and said, “It’s not the _only_ thing…there’s also…” He paused, trying to think of something else, and then weakly came up with, “Uh, you.”

Again, his friend rolled his eyes and then pulled out several rolls of parchment, weighted them down with a few random items from his bag, and then proceeded to turn the telescope to a different position, not seeming to care about what John was saying, as if he was just being courteous by asking. Or…wait. It had been a rhetorical. Ah. So _that’s_ why Rodney didn’t care. He actually _didn’t_.

John moved back to the railing and heard Rodney scoff.

“Seriously? You’re just gonna risk your neck a second time?”

“Well, it’s not like I haven’t done it before,” John drawled, sounding more confident than he actually felt, and the Gryffindor retaliated with, “Look, there’s a fine line between brave and idiotic. You are about 300 feet over that line!”

“Actually, it’s 318 feet, including the drop from the base to the lake,” John corrected him, and Rodney grimaced. Numbers was one of those things that Sheppard was good at, so he knew that McKay was getting irritated. Good. He _liked_ irritating him. It was fun.

“That’s not the point!” he yelled back at him, agitated. “The point is that if you fall and break your neck, they’re going to know that I was involved and that I let you go out there, and then I’ll have to spend my whole last year at Hogwarts as being known as the kid who couldn’t talk his friend out of doing the stupidest thing that anyone in the _history_ of stupid things has done!”

John gave him a look.

“Really? _That’s_ your issue, here? A bad reputation? Not the fact that I would die?!”

Rodney shrugged and looked into the telescope, squinting, and replied, “Yep. That about sums it up.” He made a note on the parchment in front of him, and John stood there, incensed, wondering why it bothered him so much that Rodney didn’t seem to care. Yeah, they were best friends, but John knew exactly what Rodney was like and this was completely in character for him…then why did it bother him so much?

“So, what exactly are you doing right now?”

“Walking on the roof waiting to fall to my death, no, wait, that’s what _you’re_ about to do,” he snapped at him, his sarcasm biting. “I, on the other hand, am actually getting my homework done.”

John gave him a look and asked, “Wait, you mean you weren’t lying about the homework pass? That wasn’t a ruse?”

Rodney smirked and said as he turned back to his telescope, “Tuck a lie into two truths and no one knows the difference, not even a Hogwarts headmaster. Do you want to help me find the stupid Pegasus Pleiades meteor shower or are you just going to stand there being useless?”

“So…that’s an actual thing?”

Rodney pulled away from the telescope a second time and let out a frustrated sigh, as if he was dealing with a child, and groaned, “Yes. It’s an extremely rare phenomenon that only occurs for a few nights every four hundred years. I would _like_ to see it _tonight_. Now, either go back over the roof and through the window or help me find the stupid cluster so I can _see_ this thing! Is that too hard?”

Deciding he might as well stay on his friend’s good side, because he could certainly hold a grudge when he wanted to, he walked over to Rodney and shoved his shoulder against his.

“Lemme take a look…”

Rodney gave in and let him look.

“Be my guest.”

He looked through the telescope and thought back on the work they’d been getting in class and then pulled back and checked the coordinates that Rodney had put in. Ah. He was off by a few degrees. _That’s_ why he couldn’t find the meteor shower. With a small smug grin on his lips, he adjusted the numbers and moved the scope. He knew Rodney was about to protest, so he quickly said, “The angle was off by a few degrees, McKay, you just mixed up a couple of basic numbers. Easy thing to miss…”

He stood back up, his grin still plastered on his lips, and Rodney glared at him.

“No _way_ my numbers were off, Sheppard.”

“Take a look,” John replied, gesturing to the parchment, crossing his arms over his chest, waiting for the look of surprise on McKay’s face when he saw the truth. He wasn’t disappointed.

Rodney pulled away, the look on his face almost constipated. Oh, yeah. He knew that he was wrong and couldn’t bring himself to admit it. John wasn’t going to wait for a “You were right” because he knew that he wasn’t going to get one from him. Instead, he just continued to grin and moved back to the telescope.

Several bright flashes went across the scope. It was… _amazing_.

He watched for a while and then handed it back over to Rodney when he snapped at him. John couldn’t help but look at him as he looked up at the meteor shower that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Rodney’s expression went from annoyed to such a wide smile of wonder that John felt like he was looking at a little boy seeing his first starry night.

“So…is this going to help your homework?”

Rodney’s smiled widened.

“Oh, yeah…definitely.” He pulled away from the telescope, made a few notes on the notebook he kept close at hand, and then went back to the telescope and said, “Now, can you write down a few things for me, so I don’t have to pull away?”

John rolled his eyes but gave in and proceeded to help him over the next two hours.

It really wasn’t that bad.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

“So,” said Rodney under his breath as John slid into the seat across from him at the library table the next morning during their free period. “Apparently you survived your trip back across the great divide,” he quipped. “Too bad.”

John smiled. He knew Rodney didn’t mean it. Instead of taking offense, he pulled out his Potions’ essay that he needed to finish. Professor Zelenka was harsh, but fair, and John knew that he had to put in the work to get an O on the essay. He had three feet down already. One more foot to go.

Rodney was barely halfway through the same essay, and it was due tomorrow.

However, as John worked on finishing his essay, he looked over at Rodney…and rolled his eyes when he saw he had his Astronomy homework pulled out as well.

“McKay, this is why you’ve only got an A in Potions,” John groused under his breath, trying not to incur the wrath of Madam Pince, reaching over and tugging the papers out from under his book. He waved them at him and pointed out, “You’re _done_ with the Astronomy homework, McKay. Get _this_ done.” He tapped his finger on his Potions’ essay.

Rodney’s lips twisted, and he reached out and snatched the papers back from John’s hand.

He then hissed out, “Sheppard, focus on your own homework. I’ll do just fine on it. Also, I currently have an Exceeds Expectations, and I got an O just the other day on my Wolfsbane essay; besides, I write faster than you, remember?” He tucked the pages back and added, “I only started the essay about an hour ago.”

At that, John’s inner hackles rose. Yeah, so he was a bit competitive. But who could blame him? _He_ was the Ravenclaw, after all, _not_ Rodney.

His quill went back down to parchment and he started writing a bit faster.

A few more minutes passed in silence, except for the scratch of their quills, and then John had to withhold an eyeroll as Keller came over and sat down next to Rodney. Jennifer Keller. One of Rodney’s fellow Gryffindors, who seemed to like him in _that_ way, for some reason, but luckily Rodney didn’t seem to be interested in the same way. He was in love with the work. Obviously.

“Hey, Rodney,” she said softly, almost intimately into his ear. “Can I get your notes from Charms? I missed part of it.”

Her hand brushed against his wrist. John’s mouth twitched.

Barely noticing her, Rodney absently lifted his hand and motioned towards her and responded distractedly with, “Yeah, sure, fine,” and wordlessly summoned his notes from his bag and floated them in her direction. He didn’t see Jennifer’s smile falter slightly at the impersonal gesture, but John inwardly grinned.

Yep. Not interested.

“Thanks, Rodney.”

“Yeah, no problem, Keller.”

Last name. Yep. _Definitely_ not interested. She left the table, and as she did, Carson Beckett came over and sat next to John and said to him from the corner of his mouth, “Still clueless, eh?” John nodded, and Carson shook his head and commiserated with him. “My god, that boy is thicker than a goblin’s skull…”

John snorted, slightly louder than he was expecting to, which earned him a glare from Madam Pince. Rodney was still oblivious.

Carson gave him a grin, and John smiled back.

Carson Beckett was one of the few students that absolutely _every_ one loved. He was in Hufflepuff and, for Highland born, he was surprisingly agreeable and one of the most optimistic people that John had ever met. In fact, Carson was the one who’d welcomed both John and Rodney with open arms when they were all first years together. John was from Texas and Rodney hailed from Canada, so they’d had a mixed reception when they’d shown up at Hogwarts.

Carson hadn’t cared one bit. And he’d brought all three of them together in more ways than John could count.

“So, according to my sources, John,” he said in a conversational tone, glancing over his shoulder on the lookout for the stern librarian, “You went for a leisurely stroll on the roof of the castle last night…”

“Sources? What sources?” Sheppard’s voice was harsh and accusing, but then Rodney raised a hand, his eyes still on his parchment.

“Me!”

John rolled his eyes. Of course. He went back to his paper, but Beckett nudged his shoulder against his and asked, “So, did you two really see the Pegasus Pleiades meteor shower?” John nodded, and Carson’s accent got thicker as he got excited. “Oh, you two are damn lucky, you are! I dropped Astronomy two years ago, wen’ into Herbology and Charms, but I would give _any_ thin’ to see it! Did you use a Juno telescope?”

John nodded again, trying to concentrate on his essay, but Beckett kept on talking.

“I mean, being a Healer is my lifelong passion, of course, but getting the opportunity to see the Pegasus meteor shower…it’s like getting the chance to travel to another world! Next to impossible! Just thinking about it makes me, well, I have to ask; is it possible that I might--?”

Rodney harshly cut him off. “No. You’re not in the Arithmancy/Astronomy curriculum. My money, my telescope, my choice.”

Beckett gave him a mock glare, but didn’t take it personally, not that John expected him to. Instead, Carson reached across and patted Rodney on the shoulder and said, “Whatever makes you happy, Rodney,” and walked away, giving John a commiserating look, which he returned with a shrug of his shoulders. Rodney would be Rodney.

They both worked on their homework for about an hour longer, and then went together to their first class, Transfiguration, taught by Professor Weir.

The instant they walked in, she smiled at both of them. They were some of her better students, despite the fact that the two of them working next to each during class more than doubled the chances of something exploding. She tolerated it. Barely.

Soon after they sat down, class started, and they began to whisper, disagreeing in their usual ways, until Professor Weir stopped in front of them.

“Gentlemen,” she said crisply, and Rodney flinched, but John slowly slid his eyes to his professor and replied, “Yes, Professor?”

“Since you two have seemed to have mastered the basics, then could you please demonstrate what I have put up on the board?”

John looked back up at the board, quickly saw what she meant, and he looked at the cup in front of him and tapped his wand twice, turned it half a counter-clockwise back, three-fourths forward and said firmly, “Ex forma vitae,” and smiled when it turned from its inanimate form into a small, hopping toad.

She gave him a begrudging smile, and then arched an eyebrow at McKay.

McKay swallowed and pulled out his wand and tentatively did the reverse motions of John’s wand movements and recited in a slightly shaky voice, “A vita ad formare.”

The toad turned back into a cup. Rodney let out a sigh of relief. The cup then croaked. Rodney let out a soft groan and dropped his head to his arms in defeat, but instead of a firm reprimand, Professor Weir gave him an enigmatic smile and said, “You know, lack of sleep can affect performance, Mr. McKay,” and then turned to check on the rest of the seventh years’ progression.

The instant she was away, John jostled Rodney’s elbow with his own and discreetly inquired, “So, are we going back up there tonight? For more of those Pegasus meteors?”

His friend tried to silence him with a glare, and then said, after checking to see if she could hear them, “I wasn’t planning on it, no. Why do you ask?”

“Well,” John drawled, turning the word into two syllables, “I was thinking about what Beckett said, about how it happens so rarely, so I thought that we should, you know,” he glanced behind him again. “Take advantage of it! I mean, you still have the Juno telescope on loan, don’t you?”

Rodney nodded.

“Then let’s use it!”

The Gryffindor rolled his eyes and scoffed, “I’m done with my research, Sheppard. I’ll leave it up there, but you’re going to have to go up there on your own tonight, if you want to use it. _And_ ,” he quickly added, cutting John off before he could a word in edgewise, “You’ll have to do it on your own. I’m not lying about why you’re going up there, so you might have to scale the roof again.”

John smirked.

“Well, I’ve done it before.”

Rodney gave him a look, and then turned back to the croaking cup, trying to fix his mistake. John, however, settled back into his chair, knowing that he’d already passed for the day, his mind already up in the Astronomy tower, wondering how many more meteors he would see that night, and how amazing it was that no one else would see it for the next four hundred years. The fact that Rodney wasn’t interested was honestly baffling to the Ravenclaw. Who _wouldn’t_ want to see it again?

However, instead of dwelling on it, he leaned closer to McKay and said, “Trust me. I’ll convince you.”

Rodney rolled his eyes and deflected with, “I thought you were helping me with Defense, tonight. Isn’t that our usual routine?”

John was taken aback at the question, surprised that Rodney even cared. Every single time John tutored him in Defense, he complained the whole time and did nothing but give him grief for wasting his time. So why did he want to go through _that_ and not spend a night up on the tower, instead, doing something that they both enjoyed?

“Yeah, usually,” he casually responded, “But this meteor shower only has a couple more days, right? Shouldn’t we take advantage of it?”

Rodney opened his mouth to reply, but then Professor Weir gave them both a stern glare and motioned with her wand to the still croaking cup in front of them.

Right. No more talking.

The rest of the day, however, involved Sheppard alternately bugging McKay to join him and also being annoyed with him that he would rather do something he _didn’t_ enjoy. How was it just one and done with something like this? John just couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that his best friend, the most _genius_ guy he’d ever known, was now suddenly completely disinterested in one of the rarest cosmological phenomenon’s that only occurred once every four hundred years.

He thought of dwelling longer on it, but then dismissed it.

He’d figure it out later.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

When he showed up on the Quidditch pitch for practice, Carter looked as if she was ready to throw him off the field, but John quickly lifted his right hand and flexed his fingers and said, “All in perfect working order, Carter. Don’t worry about it. I even got a note from the nurse,” he added in an amused tone, and she gave him a look, but let him back on the field.

John felt a rush of adrenaline as he kicked off and got into the air, enjoying the feeling of being back on a team.

Suddenly the quaffle was flying past him, and he sped forward on his Falconer and caught it with two outstretched hands, balancing perfectly with his knees pressed to the sides of his broom, and then threw it over to Lorne, who caught it and tossed it through one of the hoops.

Ten points.

John grinned. Yep. It felt _damn_ good to be back up on his broom.

Lorne shot him a wide smile, obviously pleased at seeing his friend back. He and Evan Lorne had been Chasers on the Ravenclaw team for years. Of course, every year there were new tryouts, but they chased all the competitors out every single time, with hardly any effort expended.

He then remembered that Lorne was the one who sat next to Rodney in Astronomy, which meant that he might have an insight into why his best friend was suddenly acting so cagey about not wanting to see the meteor shower. Thinking of it, John angled downwards and pulled up next to Evan and asked, while Carter yelled at another teammate, “Hey, do you know why McKay would only use the Juno telescope for one night of the Pegasus Pleaides meteor shower?”

Lorne just about fell off his Wind Catcher, his eyes going wide at John’s question.

“Only _one_ night? I thought that he was obsessed with that thing! That’s all he’s been talking about for…,” he paused as he quickly dodged to one side, avoiding a Bludger that had been aimed straight for his head, “For the past month,” he finished, slightly out of breath.

John agreed.

“I know, right? Strange.”

“You’re telling me,” replied Lorne, turning to face John in a tight pivot as he caught the Quaffle in an easily intercepted pass with one hand and tossed it to him casually. “He’s been plotting the course trajectory for the past two weeks alone. He kept on telling me he couldn’t _wait_ to get up there…seemed pretty anxious about it, actually…”

John rolled the ball between his hands, not hearing Carter yelling at him, and then suddenly took off just as Adams caught up with him and tossed it through the hoop a second time, before flying straight back to Lorne with a distracted look on his face, saying, “If he’s been spending so much time on it, then why only watch it for one night?”

Evan shrugged.

“Beats me. Have you asked him about it?”

John snorted and rolled his eyes and replied, “Yeah, like _that_ got me anywhere,” and Lorne shot him a knowing grin.

However, their moment of humor was broken at the sound of a sharp whistle and their captain flying up on her Nimbus and glaring at them. She dropped the whistle from her lips and chided, “Am I going to have to call in our reserve members, or would it be possible for you two to actually _practice_?”

John rolled his eyes, but conceded, and both of them turned back to the scrimmage.

After the scrimmage, he took a fast shower in the locker room because he _loathed_ cleansing charms; they just weren’t the same thing, and then took off towards the Great Hall for dinner and ran into Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex, two other classmates in the same year as them. Teyla was in Hufflepuff but was the last Hufflepuff anyone would ever want to mess with; though she didn’t look like much of a threat, she was a force to be reckoned with in Defense and could take someone out from a distance of over fifty yards away. Ronon was in Gryffindor with McKay, and he _did_ look like a threat, all muscle and beady glare.

He wasn’t.

“Sheppard, how was practice?” asked Teyla, giving him one of her soft smiles as she tugged on the strap of her bag.

John shrugged.

“Eh, not too bad,” he answered noncommittally, and at that Ronon clapped him on the back as they turned towards the Great Hall with him and said, “Distracted playing isn’t playing, Sheppard, and you know it.” John shrugged his hand off his shoulder, and the burly Gryffindor added, “Still wondering about McKay, aren’t you?”

“Yeah…wait, how’d you…?”

Teyla gave him a sly smile and answered his unspoken question.

“You can thank Carson.”

John groaned. Of course, it was Carson. He didn’t do it on purpose, that much John knew, he just had a tendency to run off at the mouth when he was put into a corner or not paying attention to who he was talking to. He’d walked in on him talking to himself, once, only to realize that Carson had been continuing a conversation from ten minutes before with Rodney.

John caved into the inevitable question and said, “McKay’s acting…weird. Not himself, you know?”

“Carson said something about a meteor shower?” Teyla carefully asked, and John nodded. “What exactly happened?”

He shrugged.

“Well, we originally met up on the Astronomy tower, so he could fix my wrist, you know, so I could play the big game this weekend, to make sure Ravenclaw wins the damn cup! And then,” he gestured sharply with one hand, “After getting pissed at me for going over the roof, he mentioned he had Astronomy homework. The only thing that seemed to make him happy was _me_ not going back on the roof, so I decided to stay and help just to avoid any further arguments…”

Ronon smirked.

“…We had a good time,” John finished softly, a fond look crossing his face for a brief second, which Teyla quietly took notice of. He got riled once more as he added, “But now he doesn’t want to go back! I don’t get it!”

Teyla gave him another look, as if hearing something different than what he’d just said, but let it linger this time, and then asked, “Are you going back up there tonight…or are you helping him with Defense?”

John arched an eyebrow and, completely missing the implication in her question, emphatically replied, “I’m going back up, obviously. Who would miss something like _that_?” He and Ronon shared a look of agreement, but it was broken as a first-year student brushed past them, forcing them to split up and then awkwardly rejoin their firm line of three. Teyla glared at Ronon, and then arched one perfect eyebrow right back at John and then rolled her eyes and said in a tone that implied that they were both idiots, “Perhaps someone who has a fear of heights…”

And she walked away from them, her head held high, while John stood there, confused at what she’d just said, while Ronon shook his head and followed her.

The Ravenclaw stood there a moment longer…and then it slowly started to sink in.

Well, crap. No _wonder_ McKay had been so brusque with him up on the roof. He’d been terrified. The way he’d babbled on in that way he did when he was nervous should have tipped him off almost immediately, but John had assumed that it was because Rodney was pissed at him for being reckless. Also, he’d glued himself to the telescope, only ever looking up to correct him when he said something wrong…and the more John thought about it, the more he realized how he’d been missing all of the signs for years.

Like, how Rodney had insisted that he was horrible on a broom and never went on one around John, ever since their first year.  How he always walked down the middle of the moving staircases, purposely avoiding the railing despite the fact that he was more liable to trip over his feet walking down the center. How he was always _conveniently_ busy with other clubs the night Astronomy class met up on the tower, instead of in the classroom. And then John recalled Lorne’s words: _He kept on telling me he couldn’t wait to get up there…seemed pretty anxious about it, actually…_

Anxious. Not eager or excited… _anxious_.

And then John remembered how scared he’d been at finding out that he’d gone out on the roof.

God.

He was an idiot.

Suddenly losing his appetite, he pivoted on his heel and headed back towards the dorms. He had to figure something out.

Rodney was having to miss out on a singular, once-in-several-lifetimes event, all because of the stupid fact that he had a debilitating fear of heights. It seemed horribly unfair for a man who loved the stars so much to have such an ironic phobia attached to him. John needed to help him.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

By curfew that evening, John had already decided on taking the same route that he’d taken the night before, over the roof. He’d already done it twice, so this time was significantly less vertigo-inducing than the others. He made it fairly quickly along the narrow roofline and felt a small surge of disappointment at not seeing Rodney there, as well as a twinge of guilt for doing the one thing that Rodney had asked him not to do.

He had hoped that his friend would change his mind about coming. No such luck.

Yet.

Using the Ravenclaw ingenuity that he had, he’d pulled in a few favors from some of the Hogwarts’ paintings, the ghosts, and several of his classmates as well. If all went well (and that was a big _if_ ), then within the next hour, his best friend would be on that Astronomy tower standing right next to him. Whether or not it was by his own will, John didn’t really care.

As long as he was there.

John looked around the area and then walked up to the telescope and adjusted it, having perfect recall of the numbers from the night before.

He was going to make this night the best night that Rodney would ever have. Despite being over three-hundred feet off the ground. If anyone could face their fears just to get a glimpse of the magnificent, it was Rodney McKay. Even though John liked to rag on the best friend on a regular basis about how much of a coward he was, John knew that Rodney was anything but. He put on a brave face every day when he walked confidently up and down the moving staircases, pretending like his heart wasn’t hammering in his chest at a million miles an hour.

He lied to John every day, saying he thought Quidditch was stupid, when the truth was that he probably broke into a cold sweat each and every time he saw a broom, let alone what his reaction was when someone was _riding_ one.

He _had_ to make it up to him.

He waited a bit longer, wondering what was taking everyone so long, but then let out a sigh of relief when he saw Rodney stumble up the steps onto the tower, his hair disheveled, his jacket half falling off his shoulder, and a streak of red on the knee of his pants.

Rodney looked around, disoriented, and when his eyes fell on John, his gaze narrowed, and his jaw tightened.

“You _tricked_ me!” he accused, and John nodded, not even bothering to hide it. Angry, Rodney turned around and yelled down the stairs, “You _tricked me!_ ”, and John heard a booming, familiar voice shout back up at him, “Shut it, McKay!” and then there was the sound of a door solidly slamming behind them.

He then whirled back around and advanced on John, all the while his eyes glancing towards the edge, and spat out, “Whatever kind of prank this is, it’s not funny, Sheppard!”

The Ravenclaw shook his head and put up his hands and quickly reassured Rodney, “It’s not like that, McKay. Trust me. Can you just…hear me out, for a second, here?” Rodney paused and gave his friend a once over, his blue eyes flashing dangerously…but after a moment his posture shifted, and John let out an internal sigh of relief.

“Uh, is that a yes?” he carefully asked, and Rodney rolled his eyes.

“For now, but if you keep on stalling, so help me, I will _throw_ you off this roof, head first!”

He didn’t doubt it.

“Fair enough,” he replied dropping his hands and taking a step forward. “Okay, so you’re probably wondering why you’re here…” Rodney glared. Right. Get to the point. “Okay, so I realized something about what happened between us the last night, and I wanna make up for it. Teyla sort of, you know, pointed out that I was an idiot…and I realized she was right.”

Rodney scoffed and jabbed, “Finally. Someone who _agrees_ with me,” and John glared. He relented.

“Anyways, I realized that you don’t deserve to go through hell each and every time you try to enjoy something that you love, so…I sort of…fixed that.”

He motioned for Rodney to follow him to the edge of the tower, which he did, and John paid close attention and noticed how the younger man swallowed and how a few drops of sweat showed up on his forehead…and how his hands were shaking as they got closer to the railing, even though he pulled his fingers into fists to keep it from showing.

Yep.

Teyla was right. He _definitely_ had a fear of heights.

“Okay,” John said, stopping him. “Just, stay here…and tell me what you think.”

Rodney looked confused as John walked away from him, heading for the stairwell, and then his eyes widened to the sizes of saucers when he saw John suddenly turn and run straight at the railing at full speed, launching himself into the air at the last second—

“John, _no!”_

\--and then hit an invisible barrier that bounced him back _hard_ onto the tower floor. He grunted. Damn. That hurt more than when he’d tested it before. Of course, he hadn’t gone full speed before. He winced as he stood up and Rodney rushed to his side, berating him.

“What the hell were you _thinking_?” he hissed out, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his wrist. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?! Do you have any idea how _lucky_ you are that something was there to stop you from falling to your death?”

“Yeah,” John groaned, standing back up, “You’re welcome for that…”

At this, Rodney’s eyes flitted back and forth as he put together the information…and then he looked at John in surprise and said, “Wait…you? You put that barrier up there?” John nodded. “But…but how did you…it shouldn’t even be possible to…how…?”

John gave him a smug grin.

“Well, considering I know how to break through the castle’s wardings and you _don’t_ , then I won’t tell you just how easy it was to _create_ a new warding,” he quipped, wiping off the back of his jeans with his hands, inordinately proud of how well his spellwork had turned out. He hadn’t just whipped it up out of nowhere. He actually had been studying the warding on the castle for years, as a sort of pet project, but it was more amusing to make Rodney think that the was just _that_ good.

Rodney hesitantly took a step forward, one hand out, as if he was going to touch it…but then pulled back at the last second.

“Uh, why…” The Gryffindor swallowed. “Why did you do this?”

At the question, John didn’t quite meet his eye, and answered, “I know, uh, you know, about your…fear of heights.” Rodney’s eyes widened, and John quickly added, “After the other night…and after Teyla said a few things…I sort of, you know, figured it out.”

Rodney swallowed again.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really want anyone to know about it, so I guess I’ll just have to yell at her later,” he quipped, pulling away from the railing, looking down at his feet. He then repeated softly, “I _really_ didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Why not?”

Rodney rolled his eyes and replied, “Well, it’s not exactly something that I wanted to advertise, Sheppard!” He gestured widely and exclaimed, “I mean, they all already think that I’m a coward, and now this will only make them think that I really _am_ a coward now that you’ve gone and _told_ them all about it!”

John shook his head and approached him, saying, “McKay, I never told anyone anything…why’d you think that?”

Rodney shrugged and said, “I…I don’t know.” He slumped down on the stone and leaned against the railing. “I guess I’m just used to being mocked. Didn’t see how this time would be any different…”

John felt a surge of sympathy and opened his mouth as if to say something, but then thought better of it, and instead walked over to his friend and set himself down next to him, deciding that it was best to simply enjoy his company for the time being. The two of them sat there for a long time, until Rodney finally spoke up.

“Thanks, by the way.”

John nodded.

“Don’t mention it.”

Rodney nodded in return, and they went back to silence. They had both sprawled their legs out in front of them, and John saw Rodney glancing up at the stars from the corner of his eye. They were close enough that it would have been awkward to stare, but John’s eyes kept going back to his friend’s striking profile as he leaned his head back and looked up at the sky. A soft, sad smile appeared on the corner of Rodney’s lips, and John felt a small smile creep onto his own at seeing it there.

“So,” said John softly, breaking the stillness once more, “Wanna take another look at that meteor shower?” Rodney said nothing, so he prodded, “Or we could wait another four hundred years. I mean, I don’t have any plans…”

Rodney snorted, his eyes going bright, and John’s smile widened.

“Sure, Sheppard. Why the hell not.”

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

John stood up and grasped Rodney’s hand firmly, helping him up to his feet, and then they were both taken off balance and nearly fell over as John pulled harder than expected, Rodney coming up flush against him, their’ hips pressing against each other.

“Sorry,” John said quickly, taking a step back.

Rodney’s smile faltered, and he quickly dropped his hand from John’s as if he’d been hit with a Stinging Hex and said, “No problem,” and then turned to the telescope, completely ignoring him.

Okay, now John was the one who was feeling confused.

Feeling as if he’d missed something, like he had the night before, he slowly walked over to join his friend. Wordlessly, he put his hands in his pockets and waited for his turn, knowing that trying to force Rodney to give up the telescope when he was in an odd mood wasn’t the best way to get him to talk.

After about ten, long, _tense_ minutes, Rodney looked up and said, “Well, I shouldn’t be the only one seeing one of the most singular celestial events.”

John slowly smiled, feeling some of the tension ease, and stepped up and took a long look. Damn. Even though he’d seen a glimpse of it the night before, it was still just as amazing and breathtaking…even more so, this time. He stared through the Juno telescope for a long time, wanting to see just how long it took for his friend to snap and push him away from it, claiming rightful viewing privileges because he was the one who had earned it in the first place…

But over ten minutes passed, the two of them trading a few sparse comments about what John was seeing, and Rodney didn’t object once. In fact, he was remarkably polite, not once saying anything _too_ particularly insulting.

And then Rodney stepped closer as he quickly explained something, and John felt warm fingertips brush firmly against his shoulder in an almost affectionate gesture, completely out of character for his usual lecture-mode whenever he talked about Astronomy, in that Muggle-professor like way; from a distance, typically long-winded and with a too-large ego.

McKay’s fingers tightened for a brief moment on John’s shoulder in a soft squeeze…but then unexpectedly lingered, sliding down John’s arm for a heartbeat before completely letting go.

Okay. Something was most _definitely_ up.

Slowly, John pulled back and asked, “So, do you want to take another look?”

Rodney shrugged and took a step back to give John room to move away, and said in a much too casual tone, acting as if he hadn’t just been touching him, “Yeah, sure, okay.”

The Ravenclaw watched in confusion as Rodney took his turn, still very confused at what had just happened. He was almost being…nice. Not that Rodney wasn’t _nice_ , it just wasn’t typical for him to be that way when it came to his scientific and magical studies. He was usually egotistically possessive and dismissive of anyone else’s ideas except for his own, only occasionally admitting a good idea while wrapping his own ideas around it to make it his own.

And he was being physical. _That_ was what tipped him off the most.

“Wow,” Rodney said as he stared up at the Pegasus cluster. “That’s…I mean, can you believe that we’re going to be one of the few people in the world to see this for the next four hundred years?”

John snorted and replied, “And to think, you almost missed it.”

He could practically _hear_ the eyeroll and he grinned as Rodney pulled himself away from the scope long enough to snark back, “I saw it last night, which was more than enough for research purposes, Sheppard, so if you could refrain from making fun of me, that would be preferred…”

John’s smirk softened, and he said, “I’m not making fun of you, McKay.”

“Oh, really? Because it certainly sounds like--”

“I’m not making fun of you!” John snapped, and a smirk appeared and disappeared quickly on Rodney’s mouth at his older friend’s outburst. Wanting to reassure him, but also wanting to see how Rodney would react, Sheppard reached out a hand and copied Rodney’s movements from before, firmly, but gently squeezing his friend’s shoulder, letting his fingers linger just a moment longer than was considered necessarily appropriate between friends…and then waited to see how he would react.

Nothing.

Oh.

Okay, then.

Feeling a bit off balance, John dropped his hand and moved it to his hair, running his fingers through it, and then opened his mouth to say something to the effect of “How long do you want to stay up here?”, but never had the chance to get the words out as he suddenly found a pair of lips pressed up against his own.

John floundered for a moment, as did Rodney, their lips not quite meeting up as they moved to get the telescope out from in-between them, almost tripping over it, but then John caught the younger man’s lower lip between his own and Rodney let out a soft whine. Not thinking about it, John pulled Rodney up against him and moved his head into a better position…and then they both sighed as they found an angle that was pleasing for both of them.

He didn’t know where it had come from, but John wasn’t going to complain. Their mouths were hungry and their hands were hot between them, both of them reaching for the other’s shirt, trying to pull each other closer, even though it was physically impossible, and then John let out a breathy laugh against wet lips…

…and Rodney suddenly pulled back, looking as if he’d been punched.

“You…you’re—you’re laughing…” John chuckled a second time, not quite understanding why his friend looked so upset, but then realized it when Rodney snapped, “Oh, so this is a joke to you?”

John shook his head, and reached back for Rodney, even as the Gryffindor started to push him away, and pulled him back in tightly and said against his lips, “No, no joke. Just…I just finally realized that we’ve been flirting with each other for the past three years…”

Rodney’s eyebrow shot up and a smug grin appeared on his lips.

“Took you long enough,” he said in an annoyed tone.

John rolled his eyes and pulled him back in for another kiss. This time, they found a soft rhythm they both enjoyed. They made out for a few minutes longer, until John pulled back and whispered, “So, should we watch the rest of the meteor shower?”

Rodney feigned mock surprise.

“Oh, am I not good enough entertainment for you?” He pressed a light kiss to John’s neck and the Ravenclaw replied, “You’re _great_ entertainment, babe, but we’re only going to get to see this for one more night after tonight, whereas I get to make out with you for the rest of my life…”

The younger man pulled his head back up and conceded, “Fair point.”

John’s tone was un-mistakeable as he said, “Did the great Rodney McKay just _agree_ with me?”

Rodney rolled his eyes.

“Oh, ha ha, very funny.” He pulled away and moved back to the telescope, re-adjusting it back to its’ original position. “C’mon. Let’s watch something magical, Sheppard…”

John stepped up behind him and slid his hands around the younger man’s shoulders and said softly in his ear, “I already have, McKay,” to which Rodney snorted, but smiled at the words. He then turned in John’s hands and said, “Pegasus Pleiades, John. Once every four hundred years…”

John smirked.

“The two of us, Rodney. Once in a million lifetimes.”

Rodney flushed…and then muttered, “If you’re going to be this corny, I just might have to change my mind about you being my boyfriend.”

John laughed.

 

 


End file.
